Sermon Tone Analysis

Trust

Last week we all sat here a bit shaken up by the events of the previous night.

For those who were here, we started the service with an opportunity to share our experiences of escaping the very scary flames which came far to close for comfort.

Although I wouldn’t wish these fires on any community it did have the benefit, for the most part anyway, of bringing the best out of society.

In particular, we were unified in our support and appreciation for the firies, both local and far away who defended our homes so well.

You know, I think when the chips are down, you put your trust in those that have the track record to be able to help.

In the case of fire, the choice is obvious.

The rural fire service are trained in fighting fires.

They know about fires and the best way to respond.

Trust comes naturally when there is a track record of results.

Why trust is hard

Today we come to a very dramatic story in the bible which is relatively well known in which a clear choice is given.

If you’re familiar with it, which I’m sure many of you would be, you’re probably thinking this is obvious, we need to trust God because he is the only true God.

That will certainly feature as we explore this passage, but I want to suggest that as obvious as it should be, we somehow struggle when it comes to actually putting this into practice.

What we don’t struggle to do, is to put it into words.

If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ve probably learnt the right words to say.

After all, we’re usually quite quick to add things like - we’ll put it in God’s hands, or if God wills it.

But it’s one thing to say words which express our trust in God, and another to actually have our trust in God.

I think there are a few telling signs that this can be the case.

One such telling sign might be the way we fall back on superstitions.

You know, I rarely, if ever, hear a Christian admit to believing in various superstitions, yet I’ve seen some carrying around certain lucky objects, or being careful not to jinx themselves.

It boils down to trusting in something entirely different from God.

Another telling sign is the way we think about our work.

If you’re familiar with Christian teaching then you would well know that we cannot be saved by our works.

But even if you know that, it’s almost as if we struggle to go the next step.

That is, we might be saved by the grace of God alone, but we think God is impotent to act in this world without us.

Sure we might say, ‘God will do what God will do’, and yet we act as if God will only act if we do certain things.

Now this is where it can get a little tricky, because the truth is that God wants to partner with us and he can bless our work when we act in a God honouring way.

But there is a tipping point.

It’s that point where we move from this being about God working through us, to the point where we think God’s work depends on us.

Perhaps the question to ask when we find ourselves flat out in Christian ministry: what is driving us?

Is it desperation or zealousness for God?

At the end of the day it can often be quite subtle things that point to us not actually trusting in God the way we should.

And so as we come to passage with Elijah having a real showdown, don’t quickly gloss over it and think you’ve got this sorted, the message that we see here is deeply relevant to us, particularly as we dig beneath the surface and realise that our trust is no where near what it should be.

Exploring the passage

Well, lets explore the passage and before we come back and look at how we can allow this to strengthen our own trust in the Lord.

Background

Last week we looked at which essentially gives us the background to this story.

But let me re-cap quickly.

We find ourselves a little over 100 years after King David’s united kingdom.

But now it is anything but united.

The kingdom has split in two leaving a Northern and Southern kingdom.

The Southern Kingdom has maintained the line of David on their throne, but the Northern Kingdom has shuffled around somewhat.

At the point at which this passage happens, the Northern Kingdom now has Ahab in control and he has married Jezebel, the daughter of the King of the Sidonians who very much represented a connection with the worship of Baal.

And so, while each successive King grew more wicked in their conduct and rule, King Ahab represented the biggest change of the lot because of his marriage to Jezebel.

Whereas previously, you might have called it flirting with foreign gods, now we’re talking marriage.

Previously they might have consulted with prophets of Baal, but these prophets are now moving front and centre.

In chapter 17 we looked at how Elijah coped in this changing climate.

And it wasn’t just the spiritual and political climate, because at the word of Elijah back at the start of chapter 17, God brought a severe drought onto the land.

As I noted last week, that was very significant because Baal was a god of the storms and so rain was his thing.

But while we watched Elijah cope in this circumstances, we know that something has to give.

, but something has to give.

You see they’ve reached the point where they need to make the decision.

Are they a nation that belongs to Yahweh?

Or are the going to stop any pretense and instead become like the nations around them where they call on the local deities.

The Action

Well let’s see how it plays out.

Verse 1 tells us we’re in the third year which is the third year of the drought.

Elijah has essentially been in hiding for these three years, but now he needs to confront Ahab.

Now this is a serious thing.

King Ahab is no walkover, and he is really unhappy with Elijah.

We’re literally talking life and death here.

But he goes and meets Obadiah.

Now, it’s worth figuring out who Obadiah is.

There is after all a book called Obadiah - it’s one of the twelve minor prophets, and while some in history have tried to identify the Obadiah of with the author of that book, it is more likely that that isn’t the case.

Most of what we know about this Obadiah actually comes from within this passage, and that is, that he is the palace administrator, which would have been quite a prominent position.

But not only is he the palace administrator, he is also a devout believer in the Lord and is hiding one hundred prophets in two caves.

The fact that he has had to do this shows just how far things have turned during this time.

In fact if you think about it, it is quite incredible that this nation which was literally chosen by Yahweh, the one true God, and yet they are now actively persecuting the prophets of Yahweh.

Well as Obadiah and Elijah meet, Obadiah is understandably nervous.

He knows the way King Ahab operates, and its not good.

But despite Obadiah’s hesitation, the meeting is arranged, and like there meeting that we saw at the start of , all that we have recorded is a very brief dialogue getting to the point straight away.

Elijah is very bold and direct, accusing Ahab of abandoning the Lord, and summoning him to Mount Carmel with the prophets of these foreign gods.

In fact, he notes, 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah.

If he elaborated any more, we don’t know, but it’s not until they all find themselves on the mountain that Elijah makes it clear what he has in mind.

He wants a show down and its perhaps one of the most exciting showdowns that we get in the Bible.

If we look at verse 21, he introduces the challenge, not by saying what the challenge is, but what is at stake.

Discipleship follows theology

You see he asks a very pointed questions - “How long will you waver between two opinions?”

It is this question which gets to the heart of it.

You see, it can work to a degree for a while but it doesn’t last.

You can’t serve two masters.

He then gives the two very clear options: “If the Lord is God, follow him: but if Baal is God, follow him”.

Now that sounds straight forward, and it is, but yet there is a subtlety here which I think can be missed by many.

That is, discipleship follows theology.

Now what do I mean by that?

Well, that’s a fancy way to say that facts about God have implications for how we live.

Curiously, this is something atheists recognise more readily than most of society.

If God exists and he is who the Bible says he is, that can not be left as a nice theoretical truth.

Rather it must be acted upon.

Sadly, too often we see people think about God in this theoretical sense.

In fact, there is evidence to suggest the majority of our society believe in the existence of God, but don’t want that to have any implication on their life.

While that is demonstrably true for wider society, it is probably more true within the walls of the church than we care to acknowledge.

So listen to Elijah’s words: “If the Yahweh is God, follow him”.

The challenge

From verse 22, Elijah lays down the challenge.

Although before the challenge he highlights just how much the odds are stacked against him.

Baal has 450 prophets.

Elijah is the lone representative of Yahweh.

He then gets to the challenge itself, and we could call it the sacrifice challenge.